3d modeling of a garage

[Twelvizm]

I love this site! So, I thought I would add my bit of garage-related life.

The wife and I are buying a short sale house. It's our dream house. And since short sales take awhile to buy, it's given me lots of time to dream about what I want to do once I settle in.

The first thing I'm going to tackle, is the laughable garage:

I might be able to fit an E30, or MKII Vw in there, with no room to spare. And that's assuming I don't mind the idea of a strong wind blowing it over on said car.

I'm a designer, so I started brainstorming via Maya:

And then photoshopped it into next to the house:

It'll probably be a couple years before I can build the garage, so in the mean time I'll model a beam by beam garage when I have time.

 

[Twelvizm]

Did anyone else model the garage before building it? I'd like to compare notes.

 

[Kevin54]

What's to the right of the house? Looks like it was a small store at one time.

I like the modeling idea. (wish I had the capability to do that) It really lets you see what you are going to have. Nice job!!!

 

[mcgyverit]

when i built my garage i modeled everything. needed to in order to get the prints required for code anyway. i even modeled up rough shapes of all the equipment that went in there so that i knew i had enough room and where everything would go, that gave me some idea as to where to run power, windows, air drops, lights, etc. Its the only way to go. bonus is that it generated my building list so all i did was take that to the lumber yard and say "I need this". made it pretty easy. as many will say though, "cant build it big enough". good luck

 

[Teach]

I always use PhotoShop. I used it to plan my garage ("carriage house") build, and I'm using to plan the workshop addition.

 

[Twelvizm]

The house was built in 1912 and was a part of and old town center that has long since become a neighborhood in Portland. The store is original to the house. I plan on using it as my graphic design studio (my other man cave).

Here's the inside, I've photoshopped the paint scheme.

 

[GarageEnvy]

I used Revit Architecture to model mine. We were playing with the roof line while designing so it came in handy. Plus our garage is attached so changing garage sizes only meant pulling walls. Very handy. I had autocad in DOS in the 80's and never could get it to do anything. I was amazed how easy revit was to use.

 

[Teach]

I like it- the whole thing: the rendering, the house with the store, the future garage, etc.

 

[ghnl]

Did anyone else model the garage before building it? I'd like to compare notes.

I built a scale model out of cardboard. 1/4" = 12". That let us look at it from all angles and get a sense of proportions, etc. I gave it to the contractor and said, "this it what I want".

It came in handy when we had a 'discussion' about the size of the dormers. The carpenters began to frame for 4' wide dormers. I pointed out that I wanted 6' wide dormers. I said, "measure the model I gave you. 1&1/2" = 6' wide dormers".

 

[Bear]

I used google sketchup for this.

 

[JMURiz]

Twelvizm: How far back from the back of the house will the front of the garage be?
Just curious, mine is only 16' back and if I had anything other than small cars, I couldn't get into the right-side bay. Just something to think about.

The mock-ups look great.

 

[Twelvizm]

The photoshopped photo isn't true to scale. The garage will be all the way in the back, right corner of the lot (as shown in the picture). That will actually leave enough room to drive past the garage and into the back yard. The driveway will be widened as well, so you should be able to pull in two cars at the same time, without problem. I'll have to relocate the heat pump as well.

 

[Twelvizm]

I used Revit Architecture to model mine. We were playing with the roof line while designing so it came in handy. Plus our garage is attached so changing garage sizes only meant pulling walls. Very handy. I had autocad in DOS in the 80's and never could get it to do anything. I was amazed how easy revit was to use.

I'm going to have to check that out. Maya isn't ideal for actually planning the garage. It's more for 3d animation, I just know it fairly well.

 

[GarageEnvy]

If you are a student (or know a student) with a .edu email address you can get a free student version. Otherwise it is a pretty pricey program. Honestly I tried the google sketchup and couldn't even get past square one. If I could have achieved results like those above I wouldn't have bothered with Revit. FYI revit is the same company as autocad.

 

[Twelvizm]

Luck would have it that I just went back to school. Do you have a link?

 

[JUSTA50]

I did a complete drawing of the 31x31 garage I built with Solidworks. Down to every stud. Made ordering material very easy. Good Luck

 

[GarageEnvy]

http://students.autodesk.com/

It's been about a year since I did it but at the time there were some activation codes to plug in that were emailed to you.

 

[Jason641]

I use Autodesk Revit on a daily basis at work so I design all of my personal projects in it before I build. I used it for the plans for my pole barn to get permits and figure materials. I have used it for a number of remodel jobs I have done to show people their options. Revit really helps to visualize the space first, a lot of people can't look at a set of plans and truly understand the layout (my wife for example). Another bonus with Revit is the rendering engine that the new versions have, it is a basic version of the 3DS Max engine but it works good for getting damn close to photorealistic renderings straight from the model.

 

[Twelvizm]

I did a complete drawing of the 31x31 garage I built with Solidworks. Down to every stud. Made ordering material very easy. Good Luck

That makes for the one and ONLY thing I don't like about being a Mac guy, no Solidworks for me.

 

[993James993]

Awesome design for your garage! Are you going to match the dimensions of the overhangs and rafter tails to those of your house?

 

[Twelvizm]

Yeah, the dimensions will be the same size and I'll match the siding so that the garage looks original. Like this:

 

[993James993]

That's going to be very nice. When do you plan to start building?

I didn't notice that your house had siding at first. How thick are the boards? It looks 3" or smaller? Is that material available in Portland?

 

[Cstm880]

Great design, Twelvism!

Here's my question: does anyone know of affordable and easy-to-use software or web sites where someone without much (or any) design experience could create some rudimentary building plans? I'd love to experiment with a few different ideas before starting any serious discussions with contractors or the city permit folks.

 

[Kevin54]

Not for a 3-D design package but a good 2-D is DeltaCad. I think you can download a trial version at Deltacad.com I use it at work and after I started using it, quite a few others now have it. To buy it is something like $39. It is great for laying out and dimensioning. http://www.deltacad.com/